


cry havoc (and let slip the birds of war)

by shuuos



Series: phoenix au [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Maximum Ride - James Patterson, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: ANYWAYS ill update the tags when the time comes, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Developing Relationship, F/F, Fix-It, Flying, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), TECHNICALLY !!!, bc that's my Thing(TM), hold up almost forgot, i take endgame and maximum ride and fix them both while making a niche crossover, technically, the first thing im doing is giving max a gf, ur welcome everyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2020-04-24 10:53:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19171816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shuuos/pseuds/shuuos
Summary: In this world, one of the only permanent things is death. No one can escape from it, no one can run. It is where everyone's destiny ends; there is no more going forward after that.Of course, that's not going to stop a few mad scientists from getting what they want, now is it?





	1. hope is the thing with feathers

**Author's Note:**

> what's up everyone im fixing both endgame and maximum ride isn't that neat  
> update (1/19/20): WHAT'S UP YALL B4 U START READING U SHOULD LISTEN TO [THIS PLAYLIST](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3xIh8y6jevnVWSriPzkSFP) BY [emorish-avian ON TUMBLR!!!!!!](https://emorish-avian.tumblr.com/) SHE MADE IT FOR ME AND EVERYTHING ISN'T THAT NEAT!!!!!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the great Tony Stark rises.

ANGEL

Angel wakes up to the sound of rushing whitecoats. They’re all talking at once, invading her senses. She can hardly even tell their sentences apart, so she pushes into one of their minds, a scrawny-looking whitecoat.

_Oh my god, they actually got Stark’s body!_

“What’s going on?” Max murmurs above the scrawny whitecoat’s thoughts. “Grave-robbing,” she answers with a grimace, “they’re gonna experiment on some guy named Stark. His corpse.” _Lucky. At least it won’t hurt for him._

Max laughs sarcastically, her voice raw, “Looks like he’s hit the jackpot, coming in here already dead. And maybe _we’ll_ get a few hours of peace.” Her voice wavers near the end,  and all it does is remind Angel that Max has been here far longer than she has. 10 whole _years_ of experiments and torture; what right does she have to complain about a few weeks?

“Who is Stark, anyways? The guy seemed excited about having him.” It’s a distraction, and not a very good one, but Max falls for it anyways, “He-eck if I know. Sounds familiar.” Angel peeks into Max’s mind, just to see how she’s doing.

Fear. So much fear. There’s a need to protect her, protect her from mazes and scalpels and chemicals, dulled by helplessness. She almost chokes on it all. Poor Max. Poor, poor Max.

 

* * *

 

TONY STARK

_“And I… am… Iron Man.”_

It’s poetic, Tony thinks, that Thanos has his world crushed the same way he did. Watching everything he’s held near _literally_ crumble into dust. He looks defeated, _worn,_ in a way that makes him feel sickly satisfied. Let him feel the agony of loss, let it stab away at his mind infinitely before he goes.

Thanos sits down. He’s silent as his army vanishes around him. If he weren’t in so much pain, Tony would definitely be relishing in the moment. The culmination of his anxiety and nightmares for the past 11 years is unfolding, something he never thought he would live to see. Something he’s probably not going to live to see the aftermath of.

The thought slips in easier than it should. He’s not going home from here. He’s not going to see Morgan again. _I got to see Peter one last time, but not Morgan._ This must be the universe’s punishment for everything he’s done. Yeah, that sounds about right.

 

He’s moved. Or has someone moved him? Tony isn’t sure anymore; everything hurts. Pepper’s here, though, and so are Rhodey and Peter. He isn’t sure if it would be more painful to die alone or know they’re _watching_ him die. Peter is calling out to him, _Peter,_ who he’s lost for five years, who doesn’t deserve to see any of this.

He can barely hear what the boy’s saying anymore, and he can’t bring himself to respond. There’s nothing he could say that could make this easier for any of them. Peter, Peter - _Morgan._ God, he’s leaving them. Logically, they’ll be safe whether or not he’s there (the rest of his family, his tiny family that he’s been missing for so long, will make sure of that), but there’s still the fear swirling in his mind, the _what-ifs._ What if he hasn’t done enough? What if another Thanos comes down and not even what’s left of the Avengers can handle it? What if-?

Pepper is in front of him now, as radiant as ever, who deserves better than this, than him. The air flows from his lungs in the form of a soft, _“Pep.”_ She smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. There’s a hand on his own, and now Rhodey is next to him. He’s blinking away tears quietly. Something twists in his gut at the thought of making even _Rhodey_ cry.

And Pepper is talking now, and all he can catch is the end, _“It’s okay. We’ll be okay. You can rest now.”_ Even now, Tony doesn’t have the heart to argue with her. All he can do is breath out her name again. _I’m sorry, Morgan,_ he thinks, _I never deserved you._

His family blurs in his eyes, and go dark. The last thing he thinks is that at last, he’s done something worthwhile with his life. _There you go, Yinsen. I haven’t wasted my life after all._

 

And with that, Tony Stark collapses like a dying star.

 

…………

………………………

…………………………………………

 

_“We have a heartbeat!”_

_“Has his body accepted the wings? And the DNA?”_

_“All readings are normal! He should wake up any second now!”_

 

Tony awakes to lights flashing in his eyes and pain _everywhere._

It feels like his senses have been dialed up to eleven. He can hear _everything_ the doctors (who look more like scientists, if he’s being honest) heartbeats. He can feel their breath on their skin and smell the chemicals as if they’re being held right up his nose.

“Wh-whhh…” he slurs out, suddenly aware of what seems to be an oxygen mask. He was dead. He _died._ Is this supposed to be some kind of afterlife? Because if it is, it _sucks._ They’ve restrained him to what he’s guessing is an operating table, so Tony can’t even sit up.

He settles for groaning through the mask, “Whhhhat… whaat’re you doin’?” That seems to get their attention, and he’s immediately swarmed by doctor-scientists, all of them shouting orders at each other. All he can make out is, “…there’s an empty crate by Subject 51105-1, just put him in there!” _Crate? Subject?_

 

Yeah, this is probably not the afterlife.

 

As they rush him through what is probably a mad scientist’s lab, Tony takes in the endless rows of crates. Eyes, none of them quite human, stare back at him. A horrifically skinny child, no older than Morgan, by the looks of it, catches his eye in particular. Within the few seconds he can see it, he sees a heart, two lungs, a stomach - _oh God_ \- next to it in the cage.

He’s overcome by the urge to scream, or throw up, or _something_ , because that kid is Morgan’s age, and it is dying painfully. _Not like how I died,_ Tony thinks. Which is possibly one of the weirdest things he’s ever thought.

These people are the bad guys, he’s sure now. If they can keep a dying kid in a crate and not bat an eye, then he probably doesn’t want to be here.

The scientists stop and begin to unstrap him. Now, if this were an ordinary situation, he would take this opportunity to make his grand escape and shut this place down, but right now, his entire left side _hurts,_ and he can’t even feel his back, especially near his shoulders. Weird, but, more importantly, inconvenient.

So Tony stays still as they call for backup, burly men who look like they _might_ be werewolves. They manhandle him, yanking at his limbs and shoving him into the crate without _any_ consideration for his old joints.

It’s a dog crate, he realizes once he’s inside. They’ve put him in a _dog crate._ Not even the kind with plastic walls. It’s humiliating, quite frankly.

 

“Who are _you?”_ He jolts and turns at the voice, which seemed to come from the crate on his right. A brown-skinned girl, probably a teen, faces him, chocolate eyes narrowed warily. She watches him for a few more seconds, then turns away from him.

“What do you think, Angel?” The girl leans against the back of the crate, revealing a blonde little girl with fluffy white _wings_. If that isn’t confirmation that there is something weird going on here, that’s it. He feels his skin crawl under her scrutiny, like she’s looking into his very soul.

“Angel” shrugs, “He’s confused. They didn’t make him here.” _What in the-_

“You mean some _other_ group of evil scientists made him or the whitecoats just plucked a random guy off the street and grafted wings on him?”

Okay, this conversation is just getting too weird for him to follow, “What are you even _talking_ about, where are we?” Now that Angel (which is fitting, he guesses) is done doing… whatever it is she was doing, the first girl leans forward again, and he notices the hawk wings on her back for the first time.

“Unfortunately for all of us, we’re at the school - wait, hold that thought. Your wings are attached weird. Were they _actually_ grafted on?” Tony scoffs, “Well, for starters, I don’t -” Something on his back, something that feels like an arm but _isn’t_ , twitches. He slowly reaches an arm to the offending object, the one that was scarred, horrifically scarred, by his Snap. _Whatwasthatwhatwasthatwhat -_

 

There’s something smooth and soft under his hands. _Feathers,_ he realizes numbly, _my feathers._ “What the - what the —?!” The two girls seemed shocked at the sudden outburst, eyes trained completely on him now.

“This isn’t right, this can’t be right, I died. _”_ He rocks a bit and repeats, “I _died.”_

“You’re Stark,” the hawk-winged girl breathes, “you’re the - you’re the corpse they brought in.” Tony has heard his name in a lot of different tones. Awe, hatred, reverence - he’s heard it all. But this girl has _none_ of that in her voice. It’s as if she truly doesn’t know him.

Before he can respond, Angel asks, “Should we know you?” He isn’t sure how to answer that question, and it’s not just because he _never said it outloud,_ which is a whole other thing he doesn’t feel like addressing right now.

 _They’ve probably been here all their lives,_ he thinks, _of course they don’t know Iron Man._ It’s a sad, sad thought, but then again, there’s nothing about this situation that isn’t sad in some way.

“No, no, you - I don’t think so? What are your names?” Truth be told, he isn’t sure if the other girl even _has_ a name, but it feels right to ask nonetheless. Angel and the girl give each other a look, the kind that says _“one of us knows something the other doesn’t”,_ and the latter speaks for them, “My name is Max - Maximum Ride - and this is Angel.”

“You already knew that though,” Angel says, which is _freaky_ because he doesn’t remember saying her name. Whatever, though, that’s hardly the freakiest thing to happen today.

He nods numbly, “Yeah, I, uh, guess so. I’m Tony, by the way, Tony Stark.” This feel strange. Foreign.

But on the other hand, he doesn’t think he should tell them _who_ he is. At least, not until he finds a way out of here. And he will, because of course he will. Compared to everything else, this is nothing. All he has to do is wait until he finds a way out.

 

_What else is there?_

 

The voice rips through his head like lightning, and _god,_ it’s like the worst migraine he’s ever had. Tony tries his best not to die on the spot with the horrible pain in his head. He feels Max reach out through the bars of the crate and pat his shoulder, asking, “Stark! Stark, did they do something to you?”

He shakes his head even it hurts just to do _that._ It feels like every one of his worst hangovers combined, pounding away at his skull and bursting it like a balloon. Max gets the message, thankfully, and draws back.

It takes him a few moments to grit out a response, but he finally says, “No, no, I just - just give me a bit, alright?” He lets himself curl up against one of the walls of the crate, eyes squeezed shut. As he takes deep breaths, the pain starts to lessen slowly. _If they’re gonna bring me back from the dead or whatever and stick me in a dog crate, the least they could do is give me some ibuprofen._

 

…

……

………

 

The scientists - whitecoats, he remembers Max calling them - come back once the pain has been reduced to a dull throb. Tony finally has the will to actually _look_ at them now. The burly men are back, probably to manhandle him out of the crate.

“Wonderful,” he mutters, “do you welcome _everyone_ this warmly?”

The muscle men open the crate and drag him out, clapping handcuffs onto his wrist. “Don’t die, Stark! We just got you back,” Max calls as they lead him away. _We._ Like they’re old friends instead of strangers stuck in a lab together. The sentiment makes him feel warm.

 

They lead him into what looks like an interrogation room. There’s a man waiting inside, a man Tony recognizes as Jeb Batchelder. _But he’s just a scientist for Itex,_ he thinks to himself, _what would he be doing in a hellhole like this?_

Jeb nods and smiles at him as the men forcefully sit him down, like they’re just having a business meeting. “Mr. Stark,” he says warmly, “I’m sure you must be confused, considering your… unique situation.” Tony rolls his eyes, “Unique, my —. _What_ did you do?”

Jeb smiles again, a smile he wants to punch away. “All we did was improve you. And we would like for you to repay that favor.” _A favor I never asked for? This guy is nuts._ “What do you want?” he asks warily. Everything about this screams _Afghanistan_ to him, and it’s not a pleasant feeling in the slightest.

The look Jeb gives him leaves his hair standing on end. “We want a weapon,” he says, “a _soldier,_ that could build us as many guns and missiles as we need. In other words, _you.”_

 

Tony laughs and laughs in his face. He’s not laughing when one of the muscle men (bodyguards, he guesses now) tazes him.

 

“Dr. Batchelder,” he hisses, head now pressed against the table, “I haven’t made any war weapons in years. And besides, how are _wings_ supposed to make me a soldier?” At the mention of them, said extremities twitch. The numbness is starting to wear off, and he finds it feels like another pair of arms that he could theoretically move.

Just not right now.

Jeb walks over to his side of the table with the air of an angry parent. He leans down to meet Tony’s eyes, and mutters, “You will not be asking any more questions unrelated to your task. And you _will_ complete your task. Understood?”

 

On one hand, there’s nothing they can really _do_ to him if he refuses. They can’t injure him in a way that would leave him unable to build, and death… doesn’t hold the same weight anymore. On the other hand, what if they target his family? Rhodey, Pepper, _Morgan…_ the dying kid in the crate pops back into his mind. He could be endangering them all by being defiant.

They’ve got him trapped between a rock and a hard place, and by the look on his face, Jeb knows it. Tony nods in agreement, letting out a loud sigh. _I can still try to escape,_ he thinks, _if I play my cards right._

“Wonderful! Just tell us the materials for whatever you plan to build first, and we’ll supply it,” Jeb tells him cheerfully. It’s too unrealistic to build a Iron Man suit under their noses this time, so he rattles off materials for just the gauntlets. Hopefully that’ll be enough.

Are Max and Angel worried about him? He doubts it; they probably have a lot more on their plate. Doesn’t mean he’s not worried about _them_ . Do their parents know where they are? Do they even _care?_ He tries to imagine losing Morgan and finding her in this place, and his stomach plummets at the thought.

The words come out before he can think. “Also, I’m gonna need some assistants.”

 

Jeb leads him to his own room. It’s fairly nice compared to the rest of the lab. It has its own workbench (but nothing like his, oh, he misses his lab _so_ much) and a bed. In the corner, he notices, there’s a hammock clumsily hung up on the walls. It looks like whoever decorated the room didn’t hear about the extra two tenants until he was just about to walk in.

“If you need anything else, just tell your bodyguards,” Jeb says. “Maximum and Angel will arrive shortly.” With that, he leaves Tony in the blindingly bare room alone.

The workbench is well stocked, and there’s a forge next to it he hadn’t noticed before. Useful. Maybe he can shove someone in it.

 _Whoa, where did that come from?_ he asks himself in surprise. He’s only been here for what, a few hours? - and the place is already getting to him. Guess he’ll have to add that onto the list of things he needs to mention during therapy.

Tony goes to sit down on the bed, stroking one wing experimentally. The feathers don’t _feel_ synthetic, but these wackjobs could just be really, _really_ good at making wings. Another thing he never thought he’d say. What even is his life - new life - anymore?

There’s crashes outside, and suddenly the door is open, with the bodyguards shoving two new people inside.

 

“Stark?!” Max yells in surprise, looking like she’s either about to check him for injuries or punch him in the face. Regardless, Tony holds his hands up in surrender, because he doesn’t really feel like getting clocked by a mutant today, you know? So much has already happened, no need to add that on top.

Angel stares at him for a second (something about her feels _off,_ and it gives him goosebumps) before going to hop on the bed. She turns back to Max and chirps nonchalantly, “It’s alright, Max, he’s not working for the school.”

“Yeah,” Tony says dryly, “thanks for the vote of confidence, _what_ is up with this place.”

It looks like Max is about to answer, but Angel beats her to it, “Like we said, it’s the school. Capital ‘S’ and everything.” Ah. The School. It’s earned that capital “S”.

He’s not sure what to say now. It’s a foreign feeling, like, come on, he’s _Tony Stark._ He always knows what to say. But now it’s like death has stolen all of the words from his quick tongue and mind.

Max fills the silence for all of them, saying, “So this is a nice room. Are you the School’s guest of honor, Stark?” Tony scoffs at that, “Trust me, if I had a choice, I would be far, far away from here.” That pulls hearty laughter out of the two girls. Maybe he hasn’t lost all of his words quite yet.

The door opens again suddenly, and bodyguards pour in. There’s at least five of them, all with a poisonous aura around them. They push past a shouting Max and head straight for Angel.

“Max!” she shrieks as they drag her off of the bed. Tony makes a dive for her because _what the — is wrong with them, they promised they’d leave the girls alone._ One bodyguard pushes him aside with ease, two others holding Max back. Before he can get another word in, Angel is carried out of the door, screaming all the while, and the three bodyguards follow.

Without anyone to keep her contained, Max rushes to the door and throws her weight against it. When that doesn’t work, she claws and kicks, but to no avail.

“Max,” Tony murmurs, “Max, you’re only hurting yourself, _stop.”_ The speed at which she snaps to face him makes him regret even speaking. “Did you agree to this?” she asks slowly, in a tone that reminds him of Nebula.

He shakes his head violently, “No, no, they said - he _promised_ they wouldn’t take her!”

“He?” Right, she doesn’t know, “Jeb Batchelder. He’s some company scientist, you wouldn’t know him.”

Max falls completely still for the first time since he’s known her. She gulps slowly, like she’s swallowing back bile. After a moment, she speaks again, “Jeb is a liar and a traitor. Don’t trust anything he says.” The bitterness in her voice suggests some kind of grudge. And then she called him “Jeb”. Not “Batchelder”, “Jeb”. Does she know him?

“I’m sorry,” is what comes out instead of a question, “I should have fought harder-”

“Stark, unless you went and gave them permission to take Angel, please shut up,” Max tells him flatly.

 

* * *

 

MAXIMUM RIDE

They took Angel. They took her and they _hurt_ her. Like she was some kind of lab rat, and not Max’s _baby_ who she’d raised herself.

She isn’t sure how long they have her - long enough for Stark to move her onto the bed - but it definitely feels like an eternity. Every second _hurts,_ stings against the wound left by the disappearance of her Flock.

After Max has received a thousand stabs in her chest (it seems poetry isn’t dead), Angel finally returns, beaten and bloody. She stumbles towards Max, but stumbles halfway through with a cry. And that’s enough to get Max rushing to her baby, “Angel! Angel, what happened?” Angel lets out a stuttering sob, “Di-i-i-ssect-sect-”

“They _vivisected_ you?” Stark asks in horror. Max ignores him and adjusts her hold on Angel so that she’s cradling her. She can see the stitches from where the whitecoats cut, now. Disgust and anger swirl in her stomach.

“Oh, Angel, _Angel,”_ she murmurs, rocking slightly. At least she can hold her here.

Stark creeps forward with hesitating steps until he is only a few feet away. Maybe she’ll feel embarrassed about this later, but this is the first chance she’s gotten to hold Angel since she was captured, so she doesn’t really care.

“We need to get out of here,” Stark says, “but I need your help.” Max stares at him, remembering what the Erasers said. _They’re Stark’s assistants now._ “I thought we were gonna help with whatever the School wants from you?”

He shakes his head, “Yeah, no, that was a lie.” God, what a stupid man she’s stuck with. No one just _lies_ to the School and gets away with it.

“We’ll last a week, tops,” she tells him in annoyance.

Stark just smiles, kind of the way Jeb did, once, before everything. “Well then,” he says, “this is going to be an important week for all of us, won’t it?”


	2. birds of a feather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Max and Angel get a few more Flockmates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT'S UP YALL I'M BACK WITH ANOTHER UPDATE!!!!!!!!

TWO DAYS AFTER THE REVIVAL OF TONY STARK

_They buried Tony Stark’s body under a large tree near his cabin. Next to him is a homemade tombstone for Natasha Romanoff, a hero to the end. There is an identical one in Clint Barton’s possession, to be placed out in the field of his farmhouse when he returns home. It was the least he could do, he said._

_James Rhodes, or Rhodey, tries to visit every day. He talks to both of them, as if either are there to listen. Maybe they are, in some way. He isn’t sure, nor does he want to contemplate it._

_He tells them about how everyone is trying to rebuild. How empty everything feels, even though the Earth is so full. It will take time before everything fits again._

_But not for him. Not without either of them._

 

_Two days after Tony Stark is revived, unknown to everyone but a small organization of scientists, Rhodey comes by again. He has no idea that he is talking to two empty graves. The dirt is churned, as if it is recoiling in the fact that the world has been robbed of two great heroes. Rhodey notices._

_Stuck to the bark of the tree is dirty white fur. There are long, deliberate claw marks around Tony’s grave. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what happened._

_He stays for a few moments more, and then returns to the cabin to share the news._

 

_Something has changed._

 

* * *

 

MAXIMUM RIDE

They’re _building._ Max isn’t quite sure what Stark is doing most of the time (Iggy would, or maybe Gazzy, they’re both so smart), but it’s pretty good for something they’ve literally built with a box of scraps.

It’s getting harder to keep herself together. The School knows how to get to her, how to push all of her buttons. But she doesn’t even dare to think about it, not once. Not when Angel can hear her thoughts so clearly. Stark helps, sometimes. Who knew adults could be useful for something other than stabbing you in the back?

One time, after they take Angel _again,_ Max tells him this. She thinks it’ll be funny, it _should_ be funny (haha, it’s called _coping,_ **_Stark_ **, hahaha), but he just looks horrified. The joke falls pitifully flat. Oh well.

In the meantime, they figure out more about Stark’s ~~fis- phiz-~~ physiology. His wings fold into his back like hers, albeit a bit clunkier, and they _seem_ fairly normal for a birdman (dang it, _she_ was supposed to be the first bird-adult, if any of them managed to survive that long). It’s a bit harder to judge other mutant stuff, like strength and senses, without anything to test them on. She _does_ know, however, that Stark hardly has any control over his wings. It’s understandable - if Max suddenly grew a tail, she wouldn’t know what to do with it either.

When Angel comes back, she abandons every other task to hold her. It was the maze, this time, she mumbles put, her tiny body still convulsing slightly from all the shocks.

 

Max’s feet tingle with phantom burns at the mention of the maze.

 

Stark lets Angel rest on his bed after the School’s latest experiment, his eyes sad and tired. Max hates it, hates the feeling of being pitied. But Angel needs somewhere to sleep that’s better than the stupid hammock they put up, so she says nothing, focusing on bending metal.

“Is this how it always is around here?” Stark asks.

Max gives him a shrug. “Haven’t been here in a while,” she says, “but the ‘robot chasing you with a gun’ thing is new. They used to use Erasers.” It took a while for Stark to understand what an Eraser was when they first talked about them (he thought they were normal, if a little _too_ ripped and perfect-looking), but he understood the name instantly. “Yikes.”

The idea of being pitied for something that happened so long ago makes her uncomfortable, so she asks, “When are these things supposed to be finished?”

“I think in… two days? Not that we’ll be able to tell.”

“Yeah, no, maybe we could build a watch, next.”

“I don’t suppose any whitecoats would mind?”

“Who cares?”

“Yeah, that’s true, — them.”

 

The glove-looking things sit on the table in front of them some time later. _‘Gauntlets’,_ it turns out. There’s only a pair for one person - Stark had offered to make her something, but Max turned it down on the premise of being strong enough to handle herself.

“They look cool!” Angel says brightly. At least the School hasn’t _completely_ messed her up. _Don’t worry, Max,_ Angel tells her telepathically, _I’m fine._

She can’t help but doubt that, but Max won’t argue. She can play therapist later.

“Alright, now we need a plan,” Stark announces, “but we’re gonna have to figure out a way to get it past the cameras-”

“There aren’t any cameras,” she interrupts bemusedly. Stark turns sharply to face her, face slack with shock, “I’m sorry, come again?”

She repeats, “There aren’t any cameras except for in the testing rooms. They’re too  broke to get more.” The older man doesn’t say anything. He just blinks.

 _Max, can I tell him about the mind-reading thing? Just in case?_ Angel asks. Max nods, because, well, they’re allies now. No use hiding something so important. So with her permission, Angel turns to Stark and chirps helpfully, “I also have te-le-pa-thy, if that helps,” enunciating each syllable. He blinks again.

She’s never seen someone blue-screen in real life before.

 

…

……

………

 

The plan should be simple enough. Wait for the Erasers to show up, go to town on them, leave the room, and bust out of here.

Of _course_ it wasn’t that simple though, Max notes in irritation as she is pushed back into a crate with Angel. They’re carting a whole bunch of them along, filled with terrified mutants. Suspiciously enough, Stark isn’t in any of them. Instead, he’s led along by Erasers, still wearing the gauntlets.

One of the Erasers has a gun (wait) and they all have a grim sort of determination around them (wait). “Max,” Angel whispers, her face pale, “why did the whitecoats tell them about discarding us? What does that mean?” (w a i t) The pieces fall into place in her mind, 

Suddenly, it makes sense why they let Stark keep the gauntlets.

 

* * *

 

TONY STARK

The plan has been severely screwed with. They hadn’t discussed Erasers with crates or huge guns, and now here they are, with Max and Angel in a crate surrounded by Erasers with huge guns. Wonderful.

But Tony can’t figure out _why_ they’re here. All the other mutants seem terrified, but that doesn’t give him any clues. They’re always terrified, if the screaming around him is any indicator. (These poor, poor kids.) For all he knows, this could be some kind of weird, team experiment.

But then why would they need to give an Eraser a gun? They’re strong enough to handle a group of half-starved kids by themselves. The only reason he can think of is if they wanted to quickly kill - oh.

_Oh._

 

They’re all led outside. The sun’s starting to set, hidden by tiny clouds. By all means, it’s a very pretty day, except for the fact that these kids are going to _die._

 _You can stop that,_ Angel’s voice rings in his head, please, _they’re all scared. Even Max._ Right, right, telepathy. So weird.

 _I will, Angel, don’t worry, tell Max not to be scared,_ he thinks. And Tony _knows_ she’s scared, probably more for Angel than herself. That’s just the kind of person Max is - which isn’t a _bad_ thing, by all means, he adds in case Angel is still listening. 

They arrive in a field filled with whitecoats. No Erasers, though, other than the small group escorting Tony. Yeah, ok, he can work with that.

 _Angel, are you listening?_ he thinks.

 _I always am,_ she responds, quickly adding on, _But not in a weird way, it’s just that I dunno how to turn it off._

_That’s alright, don’t worry about it. Can you guys fight Erasers?_

Angel is silent for a moment, but for a second it almost sounded like he was talking to FRIDAY. _The other kids can’t, but Max can._ Well, it’s not the perfect plan he would have liked, but it’ll (probably) work.

 _Well, tell Max to get ready._ The Eraser pushing the crates stops, along with the armed one. All the others keep going, probably to talk to the whitecoats.

Taking out the Eraser with the gun is his top priority right now. He doesn’t know what he’d do with a gun, since he already has the gauntlets, but better him than a murder-mutant. OK, that’s the plan, then. Hit them both, take the gun, and then go wild on the rest of the Erasers. Maybe knock out a few whitecoats, too, just in case.

Tony aims at the back of the first Eraser’s neck, and fires with practiced ease.

 

It crumples like sheet metal under pressure. The other Eraser whips around, but he gets it in the face before it can lunge at him.

Max yells and sticks her fist through the bars of the cage, waving it around triumphantly. He bends over to pick up the gun, noting all the fine details. It’s an old model, practically worthless. This place really has no money.

Breaking the locks on the cages is easy - with augmented strength from the gauntlets, it’s practically child’s play. It’s the outburst of mutant kids that’s harder to deal with. They come pouring out, clinging to him or dashing into the woods.

“Stark! Max!” Angel yells over the cacophony, “The others are coming!” She’s perched on top of one of the cages. With a halo of sunlight on her hair and white wings outstretched, she looks, for all the world, like a real angel.

Somewhere within the chaos, someone howls, and Tony immediately turns to find the source. The crowd parts as the Erasers _morph,_ human features replaced by lupine ones. He’s able to take out most of them with the gauntlet, but it’s hard to avoid hitting the kids that haven’t run away. Most of his shots barely sear the wolf-men’s fur and ears.

One of the kids - a girl with jet black wings - shrieks as claws tear into her left arm. “—!” he curses under his breath, trying to level his hand towards the attacker. A blur of brown rushes by, slamming into the Eraser, and Max yells at him, “I got this! Go do something else!”

Tony hesitates for a second. _This isn’t a normal girl,_ he reminds himself, _she’ll be fine, listen to her._ So he turns and makes his way out of the scuffle.

 

There’s a man laying prostrate on the ground, clothed in a whitecoat. Hm. That’s something. He jogs over, speeding up as soon as he realizes there’s no aching in his joints. It’s like he’s thirty again, which is… _incredible._

But this isn’t the time to marvel at his newfound energy, even if it gets him to his destination in what feels like seconds, he reminds himself as he leans down next to the man. He doesn’t look dead, and he likes to think himself able to tell whether someone is dead or not (except for, well, himself).

He zeroes in on the cracked cell phone peeking out of the man’s lab coat. If he bothered to bring a cell phone, that means there’s service here. Which means he can call someone - SHIELD, maybe?

He thinks back to a scorching desert and an army of malfunctioning suits and the back of a van. Almost from muscle memory, he types in Rhodey’s number.

 

_At 11:32 PM, Rhodey gets a call from an unknown number. He declines._

_At 11:33 PM, he gets another call. He declines this one, too._

_At 11:35 PM, he gets a third call, and he finally answers. “Look-”_

_“Honeybear! Thank god, I thought you weren’t going to answer. I don’t have a lot of time, but, uh, we’ve got a situation in Death Valley -” The person on the other end of the phone cuts himself off and shouts to someone, “Hey, Max, where are we?”_

_Rhodey can vaguely hear the reply, “Eight… north… basin!” He can’t speak. He can’t breath, he can’t even_ think.

_“Eight miles north of the Badwater Basin. I can’t hang around, but could you get SHIELD to send someone down here?” It sounds like him. It sounds just like him, hell, it’s even speaking like him. Finally, he realizes that he should say something._

_“Tony-?”_

_“Oh —, that’s a whole mess over there - listen, I know this is a huge bomb I’m dropping on you, and honestly you’re probably not gonna think this is_ really _me - I’m not even sure if I’m really me, or if I’m a clone or something - but I’ll see you all soon, ok, Rhodey? Tell Pepper I’ll see her soon-”_

_Tony hangs up, and Rhodey’s entire world is shattered and put back together again._

 

* * *

 

Subject 52418-3

Nothing is as it should be.

 

Subjects don’t fight back against Erasers. And they definitely don’t _win._ Yet this girl-like-her is standing triumphantly in front of her, battered and bloody but _alive._ And she’s alive too - the pain in her left arm attests to that. _What’s happening?_

The girl-like-her turns around, and she flinches at the movement. Then she does that thing that the whitecoats do with their mouths to signal pleasure, and says, “Are you alright?” She nods, even though the claw marks should already answer _that_ question.

“Awesome.” The girl-like-her extends an arm (and she flinches _again,_ wasn’t she trained out of that ya it?). After a few seconds of staring, she realizes that the other girl probably wants her to… grab her hand. A handshake, maybe?

Instead, she pulls her up to her feet, flashing her teeth at her all the while. It’s not in the same way as the Erasers, though. It’s like she’s trying to get along? With her?

“Hey, Max, where are we?” The voice is faint over the chaos (are those Erasers attacking _each other?)_ but she’s able to catch it regardless.

The girl-like-her spins around and yells, “Eight miles north of the Badwater Basin, if I remember right!” She turns slightly, blinks, and looks around. “Geez,” she can hear her mutter, “what’d Angel _do?”_

Just like that, she launches herself at another Eraser in a flurry of brown feathers.

 

_Max? Is that her?_

 

The subject follows without even thinking about it.

 

* * *

 

TONY STARK

When Tony turns around, it’s clear that the battle is already waning - or at least, their involvement in it is. He sees Angel stepping delicately over a downed Eraser, its white fur giving way to deep, red gouges.

That might have something to do with the fact that there are Erasers tearing at themselves and other Erasers in the background. _They could have torn us to shreds,_ he realizes, his wings twitching at the thought, _but they’re going after each other instead._

“I told them to,” Angel cuts in. He startles and realizes that she’s right next to him now, looking _very_ pleased with herself, “I didn’t think they’d really listen!”

 

“Ange! Was that you?!” From somewhere behind them, Max comes loping over, trailed by the black-winged girl from earlier. He raises a brow at the latter, but Max doesn’t seem to even realize she’s being followed. Instead, he just stands up, his legs aching after crouching down for so long.

Angel smiles at her, a _look-what-I-did_ kind of smile, and waves at the other girl, who waves back shyly. Max waves too, no doubt thinking it was directed at her. “Ehm, who’s your friend there?” Tony asks, and she turns around, eyes wide.

“You-?!” The black-winged girl shrinks away slightly, flexing her fingers as what seems to be some kind of greeting, “Hi.” Tony snickers at them, feeling much more at ease now that none of them were at risk of being killed by Erasers. The girl watches Max with such open trust and admiration that it’s almost embarrassing to look at. And cute, he guesses.

Angel claps her hands in delight, the action making him feel ridiculously giddy for some reason. “She really likes you, Max!” she practically sings. “Is she gonna come with us?”

Max looks at Angel, then the black-winged girl, and then back to Angel. “Well…”

 

That’s enough of an answer, apparently, because Angel giggles and runs up to the girl, who flinches away. “What’s your name?” she asks. The girl blinks at her for a few seconds. Tony shifts awkwardly, “Kid, I don’t think-”

“You-youuuuuuuuuuurn?” It comes out sounding like a question, but that sure is a noise that sounds like a word, he thinks. Angel takes a few seconds to process it. “June?”

“Ju-une?” Well, guess that takes care of that, he thinks as he eyes the nasty-looking gashes on her arm.

News of their little rebellion must have reached the closest thing the whitecoats have to bosses around here, because sirens begin to blare.

 

* * *

 

ANGEL

Everybody jumps when the sirens in the School go off. Angel winces and rubs her ears. The whitecoats should be more considerate, she thinks. Just because _they_ don’t have enhanced hearing doesn’t mean they should make the alarms so loud. That’s just mean.

June jumps behind Max at the noise. Angel hopes they’ll keep her.

She turns to one of the Erasers that survived the fight. It’s standing around, a sheep waiting for a shepherd. Pushing into its mind is child’s play. _Get in there. Distract the rest of them. Die if you need to._ Max wouldn’t like it, but it’s what needs to happen, so Angel won’t tell her. What Max doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

Stark reaches into the whitecoat’s, well, white coat and pulls out a pair of keys. “Huh. Looks like our buddy has a car.”

“Huh. He sure does.” Max is using her “I’m not gonna say anything smart because I’m _thinking”_ voice. Angel wants to poke around and see what’s going on, but Max _always_ knows when she’s in her head. Maybe if she used a different voice…

“Well,” Stark says, standing up again, “looks like you can just take Angel and get out of here, and me and… June’ll see how far we can get in the car.” He stops, and looks at June, “Unless… can you fly?” June shrugs.

 _Car? Can Max use her wings? Can I?_ she thinks. Her thoughts are so quiet, Angel has to really focus to hear them at all. Max projects her feelings loud, though, like how her confusion is practically popping out of her, “The car can’t be that small, right?”

“…what.”

“Unless we’re meeting somewhere later, but splitting up is kind of dumb-”

“Wait, wait, wait, you want to _continue_ this whole… group thing?” They’re both - what was the word? - bewildered, but that’s silly. Stark should come with them. When the School goes and blows everything up, like Jeb says they will, having an adult will be good.

She pokes Max’s arm, _Is he coming?_ Max shrugs and says, “Is that - is that not what we were gonna do?” Angel catches little pictures from Stark, ones of grownups she doesn’t recognize. She sees… snow? He’s trying to be calm. _Trying._ “I don’t - are you _sure?”_ Frustration.

Max smiles at him, and Angel remembers why she’s the leader. Max is… _Max._ Bright and warm, like the sun, “You’re one of us, so like it or not, you’re stuck with us.”

“But I can’t fly yet.” It sounds like an excuse. Max shrugs, “So? We’ll teach you and June.”

“And me!” Angel pipes up. She wants to fly too!

Stark keeps looking between her and Max, and for a second she thinks he’s gonna say no. But then he sighs and says, “OK, you win. Let’s go borrow a car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're finally out of the school. i did Notte enjoy writing about the school  
> good thing it's road trip time! gonna try and keep the pov changes to a minimum from here on out lol

**Author's Note:**

> sOooOOo that's out there now  
> im gonna try and bring nat back too once i figure out how  
> come talk 2 me at @shuuos on tunglr if u wanna!


End file.
